That Book Is Dangerous: Who Decides What We’re Allowed to Read? A Conversation with Adam Szetela

What if the most dangerous books today aren’t the ones being banned in public—but the ones quietly reshaped, shelved, or never acquired at all?In this fireside chat, we sit down with writer and cultural critic Adam Szetela, author of the incendiary new book That Book Is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing. Drawing on years of research and interviews inside major publishing houses, literary agencies, and MFA programs, Szetela takes us behind closed doors to reveal how fear, moral panic, and the politics of “sensitivity” are transforming what stories get told—and which ones never see the light of day.Together, we explore the tension at the heart of contemporary publishing: the urgent push for more diverse voices alongside a growing culture of self-censorship, silence, and ideological policing. From sensitivity reading and representation statistics to social-media pile-ons, cancel culture, and the resurgence of moral panics reminiscent of the comic book scares of the 1950s, this conversation asks a provocative question: can a literary culture survive when everyone is afraid of saying the wrong thing?

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